What Writers Can Learn from Children’s Books

Today I am so excited to be hosting literary agent, Mary Kole. Aside from her role as Senior Literary Manager at Movable Type Management, Mary is also the mastermind behind the website KidLit.com where she shares tons of excellent information for writers. While her primary focus is children’s books (affectionately called “KidLit” by those in… Read more »

Start Here: Being Your Own Muse

Once you hit your creative flow, working on your manuscript can be a blast. But sometimes, the muse just doesn’t want to come. Well, forget the muse–you can get the creative juices flowing all on your own. I’ve spent five years in the creative industry, and when a client deadline hits, you need something to show them whether… Read more »

Editor Q&A (Part 2) – The Author-Editor Relationship

On Tuesday, we hosted Random House Editor, Mark Tavani, who spoke about the acquisitions process and what editors look for in submissions. Today, we get Mark’s take on the author-editor relationship and what it’s like to work with an editor. Without further ado, here’s Part 2 of our Editor Q&A Series this week. Editors all… Read more »

Q&A With An Editor: The Acquisitions Process

In December, I had the opportunity to attend the Random House Open House. It was a fabulous event, providing valuable information to writers and readers alike. One of the highlights of the open house, though, was a panel discussion with Ballantine publishing team behind Justin Cronin’s bestselling book THE PASSAGE–and now the sequel THE TWELVE. This… Read more »

Build Your Online Writing Community

The last two posts have covered building your writing community through in-person events or via classes and workshops. Today we’ll look at options for building your community online. The hardest part of writing an article about online writing communities is that there are so many of them it’s almost impossible to make sense of all… Read more »

Build Your Community (Part 2): Writing Classes and Workshops

In our last article, we talked about building your community through in-person events like conferences, author readings or other such gatherings. Today we’ll address the issue of using writing classes and workshops as a way to meet and connect with other writers. Wait, what? You read that right. I’m suggesting that one great way to… Read more »

Build Your Writing Community: In-Person Events

Writing can be lonely work. As writers we spend most of our time working alone so a community of like-minded creative people can bring a ray of social light to an otherwise solitary existence. But how do you go about finding that magical group of writers to call your own? How do you find a… Read more »

Writing Workshop: How To Tell When You Need That Boost

Few writers can thrive in isolation. Sooner or later, we all need a little boost in our writing, some external structure to help us make the jump to the next level. And a writing workshop can be a great way to do that. When I use the term “writing workshop” I’m talking about a group… Read more »

DIY MFA Workshop Recording

“Will there be a recording of the DIY MFA Online Workshop?” This was perhaps the most common question I got after the workshop this past week so I thought it would share the answer on the website today, along with the concepts that this question brought up. First, the short answer. Will there be a… Read more »